Dbest London Sound Wave Duo Bluetooth Speakers Review
Miniature speakers are beloved for one thing and one thing only, ultra-portability. After that comes the price of course and with that you probably expect them to also sound good too. Let us break it to you, that's winning combination is pretty hard to come by. Dbest London's latest set of mini-speakers called the Sound Wave, naturally considered to be "the best-in-class", offer up room-filling stereo sound with wireless Bluetooth connectivity and a long lasting rechargeable battery jammed into a tiny, palm-sized package.
The Sound Wave speakers will run you $70, and are only available in a black matte finish with protruding red speaker accents. What are these type of nano-sized speakers any good for? Couple the Dbest Sound Wave duo bluetooth mini-speakers with any tablet, smartphone ect., and you've got yourself a surprisingly superior sound experience that a bunch of people can enjoy which would be great for when you want to watch a movie and play music on the go or anywhere indoors without having to plug them in, at all. We've reviewed a few mono speakers on here before - notably the Cube speaker, but what's different about the duo is that they connect to each other (via a 3.5mm to 3.5mm cable) to from a tiny wireless stereo speaker set.
Don't expect these to sound remotely as fulfilling as the Jambox and the likes though. And not to mention the Dbest speakers definitely aren't as pleasing to look at. Suffice to say they look ugly compared to some of the more known offerings available, and that's not every day we get appealed by looking at what we get to review. Dbest prides itself at having "the best" brand name and products with exceptional design. That's completely delusional. Adding the word 'London' to your name is even a bigger joke to make yourself sound more luxurious which the product line clearly isn't by any stretch of the word. That aside, let's move on!
Out of the packaging you will find a carrying case, a 3.5mm to 3.5mm audio cable and a USB to micro-USB cable for charging up the main Bluetooth enabled speaker. The secondary speaker serves as a slave, and is connected using the included 3.5mm audio cable to the main unit which is the only one that needs to be recharged. It's possible to use just the one speaker should you want to.
They look cheap, but they don't feel cheap when you pick these up for the first time. Yes the plastic construction looks mediocre at best, but you'd be surprised to know that the Dbest Duo speakers actually feel quite solid. The plastic is coated with a smooth soft-touch, matte rubbery coating that surely makes up for the plasticky build quality because it makes these feel awesome to handle. I wouldn't mind not using the included travel case since these look to be durable enough to not care so much about what might happen if you toss them naked into your gear bag.
When not in use, you can attach both the left and the right speaker magnetically together to form one piece that looks like a pill shaped pod. The speakers will work even in their stowaway, pill-shaped mode in case you were wondering.
The built-in rechargeable battery is recharged using a standard USB plug and will last you up to 20 hours of continues Bluetooth audio streaming. Or if you plug them directly to your audio source, then you can expect to double that battery life. As far as on board controls and inputs, the Sound Wave speakers have a volume toggle, and power switch coupled with a blue LED power light, 3.5mm audio input on each speaker and a micro-USB port for charging. When pairing over Bluetooth, the speakers will emit an audible chime letting you know if and when you're connected to your audio source.
Clarity is the name of the game with these mini speakers. The sound that comes out of both of these wired together is astoundingly loud. But what's the single most impressive thing about the sound output with these is that we could literally crank up the volume to the max, which can easily fill a large living room if you've got a small party going on, and without a hint of crackling or distorting audio. The least we expected at such high volume was distorted sound quality, but none of that came true. Now the two drawbacks to the sound quality is that lows are missing resulting in weak bass presence. The mids aren't detailed and cannot be found.
So what you end up with is a treble heavy, albeit extremely clear audio output with no warmth or definition. The Dbest Due Mini Speakers will surprise you with their rich vocal clarity that sounds terrific even without the help of the lows. They may look like a cheapo pair of no-brand, generic, eBay speakers you won't spend $30 let alone $70 on, however, the overall performance certainly does make up for the bad first impressions.
If you're looking to just have fun and blast tunes in a dorm room or in a remote location on the go, then these aren't de best per say, but we definitely see people having no regret purchasing these mini speakers expecting great vocal clarity and powerful, wireless highly-portable audio. Unfortunately, we wouldn't go as far as recommending these solely because they don't meet our balanced audio check marks at the $70 price range, and having to still use a cable to wire both of the speakers together is not the full wireless experience you'd expect.